Gravel Or Sand? Freshwater

[starangel]

Most of my tanks have gravel. I think even the sand tanks spike as they cycle.  My last tank I used sand, what a mess, very cloudy water for a few days, it spiked bad,let it cycle with Prime so then I put in larger gravel and rocks, plants and a huge decarative rock with holes for the fish to swim threw. So I solved the mess problem. The food stays on top and in between the rocks, the fish can eat it next to the rocks and mostly the sand stays put. One thing I do like about the sand is it is easy to plant and they stay put, no more floating plants. My next tank I might go back to gravel.

 

[snazy]

The majority of fish would prefer sand, but some are ok on gravel so it depends on the fish what one should choose.
 
As for ammonia spikes, sand causing them just can't be true so I don't even get why is that stated as a reason not to have sand.
 
I am certain there were other issues at play? For example did you remove your previous substrate and put sand instead? Mature substrate can hold a lot of nitrifying bacteria so ammonia/nitrite spikes happen when one replaces the old substrate with new as a lot of the bacteria responsible for managing the current bioload was removed along with the old substrate.  This has nothing to do whether the new substrate was gravel or sand.
If it was a new tank, then of course they'd be ammonia since the tank isn't cycled yet, totally unrelated to the structure of the substrate again.
Also, if you wash your sand well, you should not have cloudy water.

 

[m00ms]

i am using play sand for the first time and its ok but wish i had used very fine gravel that i have used in previous tank which was almost like sand but a nice cross between sand and gravel.